This is a new educational effort of your SBCC. Our purpose is to do Good Work (to Love Well and to Prosper,) and to help others do Good Work, too. Small Business Chamber of Commerce, Inc. SBCC Method to do Good Work: Recover+Imagine+Think+Learn to Start+Grow+Flourish. We are working to create a network of neighborhood greeters and educators. To join us now call (720)495-4949

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Building a Better Colorado, the brainchild of the wealthy and powerful, has toured around Colorado talking with people they invited, local leaders of various sorts, to express their opinions on several issues including how candidates are elected in Colorado.

Now they are sifting through the comments, cooking up legislative expressions of what they heard.

They should be applauded for storing the pot. Maybe they will come up with some good ideas.

Hopefully they will resist the temptation to just shut down what we know is the best way for Colorado to include average, ordinary citizens in the legislative policy.
All meetings are open (unlike the BBC meetings for the first half of their existence) by Colorado law anyone can attend and observe.

Google Colorado Caucus, inform yourself here on this site and elsewhere, then make up your mind if the Colorado Caucus is a good or bad thing for Colorado.

Then express your opinion in a letter to your local community newspaper, and plan on attending your neighborhood caucus March 1. If the powerful BBC decides to crush it, that might be your last opportunity.

It could be the last call for the Colorado Caucus. Your letter to the editor could make the difference.

Monday, January 25, 2016

New Colorado Caucus Contest.
Take your picture in this t-shirt, get special invitation.
For details and picture of t-shirts in blue, white and red:
https://tspr.ng/AraiCtsc (Click)
Also, check you new article about Colorado Caucus on Wikipedia if
you haven't already. And Iowa caucuses. Caucuses?
PLEASE SHARE THIS THANKS!

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

The new Colorado Caucus listing on Wikipedia is getting lots of attention. If you've seen it a few hours ago it's probably different now.

Suggestion: Could there be a official listing posted by Colorado Secretary of State? Maybe approved by legislature. Aren't citizens of Colorado entitled to clear, complete information, especially when the Caucus killers are gathering and distorting the Wikipedia listing?

Thursday, January 14, 2016

GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT CAUCUSES - CAN THEY BE REVIVED?

Despite having virtually no money to spend, John Wren helped lead the successful opposition to a well-funded Amendment 29, which would have abolished Colorado's caucus system.

But victory was just the beginning, not the end, of his crusade. He's now embarking on an effort to improve the crippled system he played a part in rescuing. More power to him.

In a letter to colleagues last week, he noted that caucus supporters ``seem to agree that the defeat of Amendment 29 . . . does not mean the caucus has been saved, but that it has given us an opportunity to correct some of the problems that have developed with the system over the last couple of decades.''

The biggest problem is obvious enough: People don't go to caucuses much any more. The reasons are numerous: Lifestyles have changed; the system is complicated and newcomers, especially, don't understand it; people are alienated from political parties; federal rules regarding handicap access mean caucuses can't be held in nearby private homes but must often be in regional schools instead.

On top of that, the creation of the presidential preference primary a decade ago, and the mandate that delegates be allocated proportionally, means there's less reason to try to become a delegate to the national conventions - a process that has to begin with the caucuses.

We're not sure the problems are solvable - we backed the amendment, after all - but respect the effort of caucus supporters to try and make the system popular once again.

Wren intends to discuss possible changes during the weekly meetings of his long-established ``Idea Cafe,'' at which entrepreneurs gather weekly to discuss how to start new businesses. The meetings are held Tuesdays in Denver at the Panera Bread cafe, 1350 Grant St., from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Suggestions he's already received include:

* Returning the caucuses to May from April in order to shorten the campaign season. (Presumably the primary would also once again be held in September instead of August.)

* Change the day to a weekend from the current Tuesday.

* Require that the caucus system be explained in high school government classes.

* Put an explanation of the caucus system on the secretary of state's Web site as well as in the ``blue book'' that is mailed out to voters in election years.

* Encourage precinct officers to discuss local issues such as street repair as well as the political races at the biennial meetings.

In addition to the Idea Cafe, suggestions will be also entertained on the opposition group's Web site, savethecaucus.org, which is still up and running.

We don't mind throwing out a proposal of our own: Reduce the threshold for making the ballot from the current 30 percent of delegate strength to the 20 percent that it was until the mid-1980s. That might encourage more candidates to take the caucus route instead of circulating petitions.

And Republicans might consider doing what the Democrats already do: Apportion delegates to higher assemblies based on the support candidates get at straw polls during the caucuses.

No doubt there are even better ideas out there. Since the caucuses are apparently here to stay, they might as well be improved.

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Question: if I'm going to be out of town March 1 can I mail in my vote?

John Wren's personal opinion: No, your neighborhood caucus is a deliberative body, voting in it by mail would be like serving on a jury but skipping the trial and just mailing in you guilty or not guilty decision.

You have a couple of months, if it's very important to you, maybe you can rearrange your schedule.

Otherwise be part of the sample in two years, and you can certainly work in your neighborhood and elsewhere for the candidate of your choice between now and March 1 to influence those who will be taking their turn for "jury duty" in our representative system the Colorado Caucus, the best chance the common person as of serving in elected public office.

For the official answer contact the Colorado Secretary of States office, they are doing a better and better job explaining the Colorado Caucus.

I've suggested part of the Secretary of States job be to put on a TV special and info in the blue book explaining the virtues of our two party system Colorado Caucus, and the enhanced ability it gives the person without great wealth or other power to serve their neighbors as their elective representative or party leader.

Other opinions on this? Please post as a comment here. If you do call the Colorado Secretary of State please let us know what they say to you, ok?

Hyper-local self-directed learning in your neighborhood.

Wren College for Self-Directed Learning.
Learn more, faster, and have fun learning it with your neighbors. For more information about being a student or teacher, check it out: www.WrenCollege.org
Life is too short for any of us to learn from just our own experience!

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This along with http://Facebook.com/Colorado.Caucus.News are now the Internet presence for Save the Caucus, a registered Colorado political committee. John S. Wren is registered agent. 1881 Buchtel Blvd. #501, Denver, CO 80210 (303)861-1447.

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Why am I doing this?

People ask me, "John, why have you put so much energy into the Colorado Caucus. Do you plan on running for elected office?"

I'm 66 (when I first wrote this, 70 now), my time for possibly serving in elected office is over. But I want to make sure the system that gave me the chance is around for my grandkids.

My elected representative asked me to run for her seat when she decided to step aside. Betty Ann said she would support me if I wanted to do it. But the time just wasn't right for my family. Later I changed political parties, got elected to a leadership role, and ran in a primary election, just to show it could be done. I'm currently registered Unaffiliated.

I the little I can to increase the informed participation in our wonderful grassroots system for nominating to the primary ballot and electing leadership for the major political parties for two reasons: 1) I enjoy it, and 2) For the system to work, someone has to do it. My hope is that this website eventually serves as a catalyst for local community newspapers and others to give our biannual celebration of representative democracy, by far the biggest event in Colorado, a little more coverage.

If you are a common, average, ordinary person, like most of us are, your best chance of serving in elected public office is to get active in the major party of your choice and help all you can between now and the neighborhood meeting next spring.

I hope what is shared here by me and others will be of assistance to you getting started as a more active citizen, and that you, in turn, will pass what you learn along to others. You might start by sharing a link to this via social media and by sending an email to your friends who you know might have an interest in becoming a more active citizen.

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This is a new educational effort of your SBCC. Our purpose is to do Good Work (to Love Well and to Prosper,) and to help others do Good Work, too. Small Business Chamber of Commerce, Inc. SBCC Method to do Good Work: Recover+Imagine+Think+Learn to Start+Grow+Flourish. We are working to create a network of neighborhood greeters and educators. To join us now call (720)495-4949

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